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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24382936">Wildflower</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/perihadion/pseuds/telluric_cry'>telluric_cry (perihadion)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Floriography [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Clothed Sex, F/M, Falling In Love, Light Angst, Literal Falling In Love, Outdoor Sex, Porn with Feelings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:55:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,962</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24382936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/perihadion/pseuds/telluric_cry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud and Aerith find themselves alone together in the forest.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Floriography [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1744786</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Umbrella &amp; Nailbat | Member Stories</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Wildflower</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cloud wondered how long it would take Barret and Tifa to return from gathering supplies. It was hot and humid in the forest and he felt irritable. Red had sloped off to take a nap under a denser part of the canopy. It was just him and Aerith now.</p><p>He took a clandestine look at her. She stood a few feet away at the edge of a deep pool. She turned to meet his eye, and shot him a smile which made his heart skip a beat. He looked away, focusing his gaze on his sword, which he had been inspecting, although his eyes found her again after a few moments of their own accord.</p><p>She had toed her boots off and now stood barefoot in the rich dirt as she shrugged off her jacket revealing her shoulders and neck. She was covered with a thin sheen of sweat.</p><p>As he watched, she stepped into the water. He felt his mouth fall open as she walked in up to her waist, her skirt fanning out all around her. He looked away just in time as she turned to him and laughed. “You coming, Cloud? The water’s delicious.”</p><p>“And spend the rest of the day in soggy clothes?” he said, meeting her eyes. “No thanks.”</p><p>The sunlight streamed through the canopy, illuminating her. She looked like the personification of the forest, as if she had emerged from the pool fully-formed in this moment. She laughed again and ran her fingers through the water. “That’s a shame,” she said. “It feels so good.”</p><p>She kicked off from the bottom of the pool so that she was horizontal, and turned onto her back to look up at the sky.</p><p>Something about the image of Aerith on her back on the surface of the water made Cloud feel as if someone were driving a knife through his heart, knocking the wind from him. His sword dropped to the floor as he put his head in his hands. He felt as though he were about to faint.</p><p>He heard Aerith’s voice calling him as if from far away, from another time, and then he heard her clearly and felt her hand on his arm. “Cloud!”</p><p>He opened his eyes to meet her concerned gaze.</p><p>The words ‘I’m fine,’ caught in his throat at the sensation of being this close to her. She had knelt before him, droplets of water glittering as they ran down her skin. Her wet dress clung suggestively to her and he realised that at this angle he could see straight down it. He looked away. Even now it didn’t feel like he had the right.</p><p>He felt her place her hand on his cheek, and turned his face back to look at hers. The way she looked at him was so strange: there was concern, yes, and sadness — and something else, some strange light in her eyes. Their faces were so close he could almost feel her breath on his skin.</p><p>She opened her mouth as if to say something but in the same moment they heard Barret’s unmistakable heavy steps and, realising the others were almost back, broke apart.</p><hr/><p>Aerith knew that Cloud sensed it too — the other path, the way things had gone before. She felt sure that at least some of the times when it seemed as if his head were breaking apart in his hands it was because the veil had dropped for a moment and shown him what happened <em>then</em>.</p><p>(Then. How strange to think of events which had not yet happened — which may never happen — in the past tense.)</p><p>She wished she could find the words to talk to him about it. There were so many things she was searching for a way to tell him. But selfishly she also just liked to be around him: to tease him, to provoke him — to try to make him laugh or smile. There was no way to know how much time they would have together and tortured conversations about the past or the future-past felt inevitable so why rush them?</p><p>In the humidity her dress had yet to fully dry and it bothered her as it clung to her. She hated to admit that Cloud had been right.</p><p>He was a few paces ahead of her. He had been in a sullen mood since his attack earlier and avoided eye contact with her after the others had rejoined them. It was so bothersome when he did this.</p><p>Annoyed, she picked up the pace a little until she was walking side-by-side with him. She kept her gaze fixed ahead, mimicking his walk.</p><p>She heard him sigh. “Stop that,” he said after a moment.</p><p>“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.</p><p>“Fine,” he said. He increased his pace. Aerith increased hers, although it was harder to keep pace with him now and she felt herself start to get out of breath. He would always win at this particular game, but she knew how to win at others.</p><p>The path they were on led to what looked like a ravine, with a fallen tree across it. Aerith skipped past Cloud and looked back over her shoulder at him. “May I?” she said.</p><p>He shrugged, “Be my guest.”</p><p>She stepped onto it. There was more canopy beneath her — there must have been trees growing from the sides and bottom of the ravine — and she had no sense of how deep it was, but she had excellent balance. She turned a few steps in to look back at Cloud and the others but when she met his gaze she saw something in it which made her heart stop.</p><p>He put his hand to his forehead again and shook his head a little and then looked up at her again, clear-eyed. “Aerith!” he shouted, as he ran towards her, hand outstretched.</p><p>She felt the tree shift beneath her, and then buckle under her weight. Before she could react she felt Cloud’s arms around her and then they were falling, falling.</p><hr/><p>“Aerith.”</p><p>She was still alive. She opened her eyes. She found herself staring into Cloud’s, his worried face beneath her. She realised he had broken her fall and his arms were still around her. They just looked at each other for a moment — one she knew she should break, should make a joke about him getting to be a pro at falling from heights, should poke fun at him for protecting her again, but she couldn’t. The blood rushed in her ears as she just gazed down at Cloud. She might have died. Another her had died.</p><p>Who started it, she wasn’t sure, but she found herself kissing him — desperately, almost artlessly.</p><p>It was as if in this moment it didn’t matter that they still had to find Sephiroth, that they had this heavy destiny and this complicated past weighing on them — or it did matter, too much — and all they could do was express some feeling that was impossible to put into words about being alive and being together.</p><p>As she started to pull away from Cloud she heard Tifa’s worried voice call out, “Are you guys okay?”</p><p>Cloud looked up at her with an expression of pure vulnerability that she had not seen since that afternoon in her mother’s garden. She breathed out, shakily.</p><p>“We’re okay!” she called back in response after a moment. “The canopy broke our fall.”</p><p>“We’re going to look for a way to you,” Tifa shouted to them. “It’s going to take some time though so just sit tight. Barret’s going to go out to find some rope.”</p><p>Aerith felt keenly aware of every point where her body met Cloud’s, of his hands on her waist. She lifted herself onto her palms to look down at him properly, to drink in the sight of him beneath her again — and the movement brought her into contact with his erection.</p><p>He felt ... really good. She remembered how good he had felt as she ran her fingers over his clenched-shut eyes and her thumb over his open mouth.</p><p>So this is what we’re doing, she thought as she leant forward to kiss him again.</p><p>Cloud seemed to have the same thought at the same time, tightening his grip and rolling her onto her back. He kissed her hard, with a desperate edge that she had not felt that day in the garden, as one hand found her breast and the other her ass, pulling her close to him. She wrapped her legs around him, desperate for some friction, pulling at the tie and the buttons to her dress. This would have to be quick.</p><p>She reached between them to unbuckle his belts and got a hand around his cock. Cloud groaned and buried his face in her neck as she stroked him. She pressed kisses to his jaw, his ear, and then released him so that she could pull off her underwear.</p><p>He looked into her eyes as he positioned himself against her and then pushed in. It burned but it felt so good, so good. Aerith wrapped her legs around him tight and pushed her hands under his top to dig her nails into the skin of his back as he thrust into her.</p><p>It was all she could do not to moan as he thrust into her desperately at this angle which hit just the right spot inside her. Cloud buried his face in her neck to muffle his own groans. The smell of the wet forest floor and their scent was intoxicating. Aerith felt the heat rising in her, and as she let out a particularly loud gasp Cloud put his hand over her mouth, pressing a kiss to her neck. She bit down on his glove as he fucked into her. She was so close, and she could feel that he was too.</p><p>His other hand pushed between them to find her clit and rubbed it once, twice — she was electrified. Her orgasm crashed over her like a wave as her whole body arched from the floor. Cloud continued to fuck into her through it, and then he made a choked noise and came inside her.</p><p>He pulled back and they just looked at each other for a moment as they tried to catch their breath. Then he leant down and kissed her again — a gentle kiss this time, slow and sweet.</p><p>She knew it now just as well as he did, that it was futile trying not to fall in love. She already loved him. She needed him.</p><p>He rolled over onto his side and pulled her into him tight, as if by keeping her in his embrace he could protect her from anything. She placed her hand over his heart. It felt steady, reassuring.</p><p>“Don’t run off ahead again,” he said quietly.</p><p>She buried her face in his neck. But Cloud, she thought, I might have to.</p><p>“But it leads to such wonderful things,” she said, though her voice was nowhere near as light and merry as she would have liked.</p><p>“I’m serious,” he said.</p><p>“… I know,” she said. She looked up at him. He looked so stoic. She turned his face to hers and pushed herself up to press her forehead to his. “I’m gonna try, Cloud. So don’t worry about it.”</p><p>Cloud said nothing but just wrapped his arms a little tighter around her. Aerith felt that if she could stop time at any moment this is when she would choose to do it, to just stay with Cloud like this on the forest floor forever. But Barret would be back soon with the rope — and this would be one more moment in her past, slipping through her fingers like river water.</p>
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